Love and Laughter: 9 Famous Couples Who Came Together via Comedy

The past decade has seen a major boom in the comedy industry, as more and more avenues for funny people to make comedy (original cable shows, podcasts, Twitter, etc.) have emerged, meaning more and more people are employed in comedy than ever before. Sometimes, these funny people date, marry, and even have children with each other, combining their funny genetics to produce (presumably) even funnier spawn. From Will Arnett and Amy Poehler to Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, it seems like there are more of these comedy couples by the second. Without further ado, I present you with a list of nine funny people who are married to nine other funny people.

1. Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann

Modern comedy’s most successful auteur, Judd Apatow, met his wife, actress Leslie Mann, when she auditioned for a part in The Cable Guy, a film that Apatow produced and co-wrote (uncredited). Apatow and Mann went on to get married and have two funny kids together, Maude and Iris, who played Mann’s kids in Apatow’s movies Knocked Up and Funny People. You can catch Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann working together again this Christmas in This is 40, Apatow’s next film, which is a Knocked Up spinoff that sees Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann and the kids taking center stage to reprise their Knocked Up roles.

2. Portia DeRossi and Ellen DeGeneres

Most of the couples on this list collaborate with each other frequently in TV and film, but Portia DeRossi and Ellen DeGeneres haven’t appeared onscreen together yet due to DeGeneres opting to stray away from acting after her daytime talk show took off in 2006. Hopefully, we’ll get to see Portia DeRossi and Ellen DeGeneres act alongside each other someday. Arrested Development is always good for celebrity cameos, and there’s still allegedly another season and a movie on the way.

3. Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman

Perhaps no real-life couple in TV history has played a more disturbing, dysfunctional fictional couple than Megan Mullally and husband Nick Offerman do on Parks and Recreation. During Mullally’s recurring appearances on the show as Ron Swanson’s ex-wife Tammy #2, the two get a chance to turn their real relationship on its head by playing a couple that alternates between fighting and making passionate love. Outside of Parks, Mullally and Offerman have appeared together on Childrens Hospital, David Wain’s webseries Wainy Days, and in three upcoming films: Gay Dude, Somebody Up There Likes Me, and Toy’s House.

4. Amy Poehler and Will Arnett

Just like Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, Amy Poehler and husband Will Arnett appear onscreen together frequently as odd duos, whether it be as a brother/sister ice skating team in Blades of Glory or as Gob Bluth and his wife whose name he doesn’t know in Arrested Development. Poehler and Arnett have two kids together, who are genetically predisposed to be the funniest humans ever.

5. Scott Aukerman and Kulap Vilaysack

Podcast kingpin and host of IFC’s Comedy Bang Bang Scott Aukerman met his now-wife Kulap Vilaysack, a regular on Childrens Hospital and host of the wildly-popular podcast Who Charted?, at a Mr. Show taping, where Aukerman was working as a writer. Aukerman and Vilaysack each start to run their own popular live comedy shows in L.A. in the early 2000s. His was Comedy Death-Ray (now Comedy Bang! Bang!), and hers was Comedy Garage. Since then, both of their stars have risen as Kulap Vilaysack and Scott Aukerman each have their own amazing podcast on Aukerman’s podcast consortium Earwolf and a role in a hip comedy TV show.

6. Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara

Popular comedy act Stiller and Meara met at a theatrical audition in the 1950s and soon began appearing onstage together as members of the Compass Players, a Chicago-based comedy troupe that saw some of its members go on to found the humor juggernaut Second City. Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara’s son Ben Stiller also has a successful career in comedy, and he recently produced a web series starring his funny parents.

7. Anna Faris and Chris Pratt

Now married and expecting their first kid together, Anna Faris and Chris Pratt first met on the set of the movie Take Me Home Tonight several years back. Since then, Pratt’s star has risen as he landed his breakout role in Parks and Recreation and also turned in performances in Moneyball and Five-Year Engagement, while Faris’s movie career has continued to thrive with performances in The Dictator, Yogi Bear, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. This marks the third Parks and Rec couple on this list, although Anna Faris has yet to appear on the show that seems to have attracted most of the funniest couples going.

8. Paul Scheer and June Diane Raphael

Both alums of the UCB Theatre and Training Center, Paul Scheer and June Diane Raphael are a comedy couple who currently star alongside each other in the Adult Swim series NTSF:SD:SUV: (which Scheer created): and they also co-host the Earwolf podcast How Did This Get Made? alongside pal Jason Mantzoukas. Whether they’re fighting terrorists on TV or riffing on bad movies together, Scheer and Raphael are a great comedy team who seem to be getting busier and busier by the second.

9. Steve Carell and Nancy Walls

After meeting as writer/performers at Second City Chicago in the early 90s, Steve and Nancy Carell (formerly Nancy Walls) got married and moved to New York together in 1995, when Walls got a job as a Saturday Night Live cast member. The late 90s saw the Carells both land jobs as Daily Show correspondents, a gig that springboarded Steve to movie stardom and a lead role on The Office, where Nancy played his recurring love interest, real estate agent Carol Stills. The Carells’ have two kids together and are presumably a much more functional couple than Michael Scott and Carol Stills were.